Coffee Crone: Taming Coffee Blog

June 30 2006

The Girlie Way

I spent way too much time yesterday following a conversation on roasting with the iRoast-2. I love my roasters' Email list, but it sure can be a rip-roaring time waster.

The discussion began innocently enough. A person who was new to the list mentioned that she was seeing a whole lot of posts about another method of roasting, but not much discussion about the iRoast-2. Predictably, all of us IR2 users crawled out from the woodwork and posted with great abandon.

I would guess that about 95% of list members are very geeky guys. So I probably should not be surprised that most of them approach coffee roasting in an analytical, numbers based, way. Post after post dealt with measuring bean mass temperature using devices like thermocouples and then plotting the numbers onto graphs to create roast curves.

I understand that an advanced degree in physics, chemistry, or mathematics can provide insight into roasting really great coffee. I even understand the siren call of the kind of number crunching that creates lovely macro embellished spread sheets; after all, I am not only a techie myself, I am also married to an accountant. That being said, after the barrage of posts had calmed down, I found myself forced to admit, both to myself and publicly, that my own roasting is hopelessly girlie in a Mars vs. Venus way, and that I need my coffee roasting to have a little more romance, even if it means a little less techie goodness.

The intense sensory experience of roasting coffee wins hands down given the choice between checking and recording bean temperature every 15 seconds, or gazing into the roasting chamber watching the beans change colour, breathing in the changing scents of the roast, and listening for the telltale sounds of first crack, then a bit of silence and, perhaps, if I am roasting dark, the tentative beginnings of second crack.

I guess it is like my experience baking bread. I know I can get terrific bread using a specialized dough mixing machine, but I want, or mebbe need, to get my hands in the dough and to feel the texture develop with my finger tips. And while I can't touch my precious beans as they transform themselves, I can still have an equally sensory laden experience.

And what am I drinking today? Well, the cup of the day is an organic Guatemalan, lovingly produced by a small coffee co-operative, carefully watched over, with all of my senses, as it roasted, and then finely ground, meticulously brewed, and finally served in my favourite bone china cup.

There are other ways to do it, but my inner girlie-girl wants the whole experience to overwhelm me.